


Uprooted Modern AU

by sarasaramary



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 06:51:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11618250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarasaramary/pseuds/sarasaramary
Summary: basically modern AU banter between Agnieszka and the Dragon





	Uprooted Modern AU

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first time writing fanfiction for Uprooted, it's my new favourite book of all time. This was written in the context of the Uprooted ficathon, I hope you enjoy!   
> (I'm the worst at titles so I just named it Uprooted modern AU because I'm basic AF)

Modern AU Uprooted fanfiction

AGNIESZKA

I was running late, but I supposed Kasia was already used to it. It’s surprising even to me how I managed to run out of time so often… Looking around and seeing the street empty, I started running. I had been supposed to be at the café I usually meet up with my friend five minutes ago, but I was a few streets away from it.

I looked at my watch, crossing the street, trying to estimate how late I was actually going to be. I hear sudden sound of breaks behind me. I turn around quickly and, shit, was it not a green light? 

Out of instinct, I closed my eyes and put my hands in front of me, but of course, there was no stopping the car that’s coming closer-

I’m smashed onto the pavement and a sharp pain goes through my back, but I almost don’t notice it in the crashing sound of the car being thrown backwards. I open and close my eyes again, then rub them with my hands. Am I hallucinating? My heart is beating like crazy- how am I alive, but most importantly, how the hell was that car pushed the other way? I try to drag myself towards the vehicle- I don’t have enough strength to walk. I don’t have enough strength to do anything- it’s like life got sucked out of me, but keep going, because the driver of the car might have it worse than me.

What happened? What happened? What happened? The question pulses through my head, but I push it aside for now. I need to make sure the driver is okay. Should I call the police? What happened? Did I kill somebody? What happened? I shake my head, trying to stop it from ringing.

I finally reach the car. The street is still empty, except for a man talking on the phone. Maybe he’s calling 991.

“Yes, definitely magical, she must be one… What? Why do I have to take her, can’t anyone else-“

I stop paying attention to him and look through the car window. The driver, a slim, bronze-skinned woman, seems to be breathing still. I cry out in relief. Her glasses are broken and there are a few blood stains on her purple dress, but she’s still alive. I see it in the constant rise and fall of her chest. Breathing.

I collapse onto the ground. I can’t hold on anymore, I can’t. 

“What a mess you’ve made” I hear the man who was on the phone earlier. I’m barely keeping my consciousness. He manages to get the woman out of the driver’s seat and lays her on the pavement, chanting in a low voice. The police, I should call the police-

I black out.

THE DRAGON

I can’t believe I was the only wizard around who didn’t have an apprentice and I also happened to be the only witness to the magical accident that had just happened. I hadn’t had an apprentice in decades and intended for things to remain that way, I thought as I closed my phone, damning the all the wizarding rules which obliged me to take her in. Thanks to this random young woman, my peace was going to be disrupted for months, at best. I sighed as I walked towards the car, making sure the driver was all right. I got her out and started chanting some healing spells, altering them with memory loss spells. Modern wizards didn’t show themselves or their magic to most of the world.

After the woman who had been driving was fully healed and her car repaired as well as I could, I approached the young witch. She must have been in her early twenties, with messy dark hair and freckles all over her nose. Her clothes were stained and ruffled, I noticed with distaste, but that was to be expected when she had just caused a traffic accident.  
I sighed, took her into my arms and murmured a spell. A moment later, we were in the penthouse.

***********************************************************************

AGNIESZKA

I wake up in a small bed that is certainly not the one in my college dorm room. The room has an orange glow to it that probably means sunset. Or sunrise? I was supposed to meet Kasia at our usual place for lunch. I get up, confused. Reaching the door, I finally remember the earlier events. The car crash. The car that should not have crashed. The car that should have run me over, but didn’t. How? Then I recall somebody telling me that I’ve made a mess. Thinking about it now, I think it was a man, and he got the driver out of the car and-

Did he kidnap me? I look around, paying attention to more than the sunset this time. The room has two big windows and the bed I got out of, as well as a big desk, a wardrobe and a fluffy white carpet, all of them in a sleek, minimalist design. Doesn’t look like a cell, I reckon, but I search for a weapon anyways. I step into the hallway carefully and inspect the bookshelf in front of me. It’s mostly filled with plain journals. I grab one at random and open it. The first page is titled “Why The Nightmare before Christmas is one of the best movies ever”. I close it and pick a bigger volume, one I can use to defend myself. It’s a thick leather book that has “Luthe’s Summoning” written on the cover. It’s heavy enough to get a good hit with it, so I settle for that. The bedroom door wasn’t locked, so maybe I haven’t been kidnapped after all. Did I suffer from memory loss? Did Kasia redecorate the dorm? 

Stop it, I tell myself. There’s no way I’ve been in this place before. I try to make as little sound as possible as I make my way through the corridor. There are a couple of black doors on each side, but I decide to walk towards the big room ahead.

There! Reaching the end of the hallway, I can make out a man in the diffused light of the sunset, staring outside the window. He can’t see me from that angle. I get closer and closer and-

I hit him in the head with the book, then do it again. He turns around, caught by surprise, and the book flies from my grasp into his hands.

“What the-“ he starts, I try punching him, but I haven’t really punched anyone before, so I miss. He catches my fist in his free hand and stares at me.

“What are you doing?” he asks, frowning. “I pick you up half dead from the middle of the street and, and you start hitting me with this?” he shakes his head, incredulously, then looks at the cover of the book. “Luthe’s Summoning?”he shouts. “How the hell did you find this, how…? You lunatic woman, you imbecile-”

I stop trying to hit him and want to apologise, but then think better of it. He may have saved me on the street, but where did he take me? I wasn’t locked in, but I’m pretty sure it does count as kidnapping, so instead I ask:

“Where am I? Who are you? What happened to the woman driving the car, is she fine? How did the book fly from my hands? What-“

Seeing that I’m no longer trying to attack him, he lets go of my hand and starts talking.

“Remember how you threw that car backwards? Yeah, that’s not normal. You’re a witch. Your magic probably lashed out instinctively to protect you. I’m apparently the only wizard without an apprentice in the area so, sadly, I had to take you in. As we just saw, that’s working out perfectly.” He threw me an angry look and stormed out of the room.

**********************************************************************************

AGNIESZKA

It took some time to get used to all of it. I was learning basic spells, but not without difficulty. I wasn’t allowed to leave the penthouse due to some stupid old rules set for apprentices. If it were up to him, however, I would have probably been out of here on the first day. The only reason why I didn’t try to run away was that the rules had been set so that inexperienced witches and wizards aren’t a danger to others. The car crash made me realised I had to stay and learn to control my magic. The driver was healed and had no memory of the incident, but it could have been much worse if the wizard hadn’t been there to clean up the mess.

He refused to tell me his actual name, but instead called himself The Dragon. At first, I burst into laughter, thinking that maybe that was what passed as a joke for his dry sense of humour. He stared at me dead serious until I stopped, realising that he meant it, only to crack up again, because who calls himself “The Dragon” seriously? Apparently, it’s a common thing between witches and wizards to have a ridiculous second name. I made a mental note to never get one. Agnieszka was a good enough name for me.

The name incident resulted in another angry frown from the Dragon and another angry rush out of the room. I didn’t mind it, as he wasn’t exactly great company. 

On the days when he didn’t ignore me, he tried to teach me different charms and incantations, but his method felt too… mechanic and cold to me. I could barely manage to keep up with the lessons and magic exhausted me, like it did the day I stopped the car from running me over.

I didn’t tell people about the cause of my disappearance. My college acquaintances thought I was back home, while my family didn’t think me anywhere else other than school. The only one I told was Kasia, who had bombarded my phone with non-stop calls after the accident. When the Dragon wasn’t around, I facetimed her so that I felt less lonely. She offered to break in and take me out of the penthouse herself, but I politely refused her offer: I was going to master my magic and stay here until I no longer posed a threat to others. I also didn’t want some grumpy ancient witches and wizards chasing me and my best friend for daring to disrespect their rules. I stayed.

As I got more confident, I started doing magic by myself. If the Dragon wasn’t going to do anything more than repeat his boring algorithms which I couldn’t understand, I was going to tackle magic by myself. After all, I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible.

I started scrolling through witching blogs on Tumblr and even chatting with other young witches. As I had suspected, The Dragon’s way was certainly not the only way to practice magic, so day by day I started getting better at it. I sometimes even ignored his indications completely and my spells turned out better than ever before. I could now grow plants, move the air in the room around in a little tornado in my palm, change my clothes and, if I struggled hard enough, even summon fire.

**********************************************************************************

AGNIESZKA

“Stay focused on the illusion” 

“I’m trying” I gritted my teeth.

I was trying to build the illusion of a book, but so far it looked more like a dark brick to me. The Dragon kept explaining me his method over and over again, but I couldn’t make it work. Or maybe… I had another idea. I remembered some quotes from a book I loved.

“Repeat the steps and-“ he started.

“Silence” I demanded. His eyes widened, probably shocked that I had the nerve to interrupt him. Well, he’ll have to get used to it if he kept being so bossy, I thought.

I started chanting, at first in a slow voice then faster and louder, until the words filled the room, flying around me and circling the dark brick on the table, until the illusion didn’t seem an illusion anymore, until a worn copy of “Harry Potter” appeared in front of me.

A victorious grin spread across my face, while I still kept the spell going in the back of my mind.

“Did you just… Did you just cast a spell using Harry Potter quotes?” the look on the Dragon’s face was somewhere between surprise and frustration, leaning more towards the latter, because it was the Dragon we’re talking about.

“How do you manage to avoid all of the competent spells tested by hundreds of wizards through the history to just replace it with Harry Potter quotes, a book that gets so much wrong about magic, that makes wizards a walking cliché-“

“Ah, so you read it so many times you recognise the quotes I used?” I tried to keep my face as serious as possible.

“I… I…”

For once, I actually think I could see a blush starting on his face, gone within a few seconds, but it was there. I made the Dragon lose his words over Harry Potter. That must be a first.

“Walking cliché? You live in a penthouse because you take the wizard tower myths literally. You know, I’m surprised you didn’t buy a whole skyscraper to make you feel even more of a grumpy pretentious old wizard. Which you are, by the way.”

The Dragon opened his mouth to snap back, but then closed it again. I started giggling. He looked like a fish.

That was probably the last straw, because he rushed out of the living room. He was too obsessed with neat things to actually slam the door, but I had no problem doing just that.

**********************************************************************************

AGNIESZKA

I didn’t see him at all in the following days. He had probably locked himself inside his potion lab, where he spent most of his time when he was ignoring me. I did pass by the door of the lab a couple of times, just to see if he was still in there. He was grumpy and pretentious, but I almost missed annoying him, the banter, but perhaps I just missed human company. 

One time, I sticked my ear to the lab door, because there was sound coming out of it. He probably had a TV inside. 

“WHAT ARE YOU?”

“An idiot sandwhich.”

I tried to silence myself but I started laughing anyways. The Dragon watched Gordon Ramsay as he brewed his potions. I could barely stay on my feet as I was laughing.

He had probably heard me that day, but I got away from the lab as soon as I could and he didn’t get out. I still crack up every time that I remember that the Dragon, the arrogant, professional, perfectionist wizard watches Gordon Ramsey when brewing his potions. I guess they are similar, in a way, both pretentious and angry with people all the time.

I reported the incident to Kasia, on the phone, and she couldn’t stop laughing for five minutes straight. She told me, again, that she would fight enough grumpy wizards to break me out of the penthouse, but I reported that my magic was getting better, especially when I made my own way through it.

THE DRAGON

She has no right to judge my television watching habits, I reassured myself as I tried to continue the potion I had been working on. Still, she did laugh at it. And at my wizard name, earlier. Even at my apartment preferences. The penthouse was, indeed, a play on wizard towers, but she didn’t have to make me seem so much of a nerd. I wasn’t a nerd. I wasn’t anything this lunatic girl thought of me and I did not care. I. did. Not. Care.

**********************************************************************************

AGNIESZKA

Since I liked plant magic the best and the Dragon never mentioned a rule against online shopping, I kind of went crazy buying all kinds of flowers and pots. More and more boxes labelled “Amazon” came in every day, but the Dragon had yet to complain about it. He just unlocked the door for the mailman and shouted “DELIVERY” so I knew when to pick them up.

I mostly kept them all in my room at first, so the Dragon would keep accepting my mail. But laying on the plain white couch in the plain white living room, I thought the penthouse could use some life and colour. To hell with the Dragon’s minimalism. He spent most of his time in the lab and the library anyways, though he did start joining me in the living room more often, sometimes even talking to me. Yeah, wild, I know.

So one day when he was brewing some potions (maybe while watching Gordon Ramsay, I thought, amused), I brought out some greens in the living room as well. Tiny pots of succulents at first, but then I got excited and started placing all different kinds of flowers on every shelf I could find, all while chanting spells for growth, health and colour. I loved singing to plants, a hobby that may have stemmed from my lack of human interaction, but also powered by the fact that the plants grew, twisted and thrived in the ups and downs of my voice.

When I was finished, the living room was beaming with life and colour. Much better, I thought, wondering if the Dragon would throw a fit about me compromising his design. Hell, the guy could probably run a tumblr blog on minimalistic aesthetics. 

The white marble tiles were now covered with small bits of dirt, because I could never keep thins clean in general, but considering that he was an experienced wizard, he could probably clean it up with a snap of his fingers, so I didn’t bother.

He walked in just as I was chanting to some peonies. My favourite songs to spell with were definitely AURORA’s. They calmed me and shaped my magic into a precise force and I really loved her music anyways.

“But I was dancing in the air, I felt alive and I can’t complain, but now take me home, take me home where I belong…” I sang in a soft voice as the flowers bloomed and filled the air with their scent.

THE DRAGON

She was singing to some flowers when I opened the door. Usually her weird approach to magic annoyed the perfectionist in me, but this time, for some reason or another, I stopped walking and leaned towards the door frame, listening to her voice and watching the flowers grow under her hands. I never found her messy dark hair and freckled face pretty, her talent for disaster and her annoying stubbornness being even less endearing, but in this moment, with the air around her full of song and magic and life blooming in her hands, she was… beautiful.

I almost smiled, but stopped myself in time. What was I even doing, watching this insane twenty-something woman growing a plant in my living room, making it a mess in the process? I hoped I wasn’t noticed…

“So you like standing in doorways much?” Agnieszka asked. Oh shit, she saw me. I tried to come out with some remark, anything, maybe about that song?

“I know you don’t consider me the best company, but singing songs about missing home to your plants? Are you-“

“So you watch Gordon Ramsay as you brew potions, but I can’t sing about homesickness to my plants?” she cut me off. I ransacked my brain for some words again and tried to stop my cheeks from blushing. I wasn’t sure if I managed.

“Fair enough” I muttered.

“Not pissed that I added colour into this lifeless place?” she asked, grinning. Agnieszka’s face was washed over with joy and a glowing sheen whenever her magic was at its best.

“It’s not horrendous, but the floor surely is.” 

“Can’t you, like, snap your fingers and make it all clean and polished?” she asked me.

“Can’t you?” a bit of a frown showed up on her face, then she extended her hands towards the marble tiles. “I can try” Agnieszka said, moving towards the center of the room. She closed her eyes and started chanting:

“Winds I summon, winds I command, winds I summon with my hands” she spoke every word crisp and clear at first and the dirt around her raised from the ground. She sat down in the clean area, her eyes still closed, and repeated the words over and over, softer and faster until they all blurred into a murmur. I could bet it was either a poem she liked or a spell she read somewhere on the internet, or any other unreliable source she could find. The air in the room started spinning around her, lifting all the bits of dirt and forming a little hurricane around Agnieszka. When the last bit was caught into the wind, she stood up and opened her eyes, gathering all of it in her hands. It was more than she could hold, so the ball of dirt hovered above her palms. Still murmuring, she pointed a finger at an empty pot on the table.

I brought it to her without thinking. Do I now let an annoying crazed amateur boss me around? I thought, but held it out to her anyways. The dirt settled in the pot and she stopped chanting.

“Well, not exactly polished, but I guess it worked.” I said.

“Left your grumpiness in the lab today, Dragon?”

“I’m not grumpy.” I muttered. Agnieszka just laughed and started growing another flower in the newly full pot.

**********************************************************************************

AGNIESZKA

The Dragon is starting to get used to me and I’m starting to get used to him. It’s been weeks since the accident. We still snap back at each other, but I’ve almost grown to enjoy the banter. He started letting me do my own type of magic and tried helping without pushing his algorithms and methods on me.

Today he tried to teach me the one area of magic that I’m worst at- potions, which is coincidentally his favourite part of magic. 

“What, this time you don’t put on Gordon Ramsay?” I asked.

“THAT WAS ONE TIME. Honestly, Agnieszka, are you ever going to let that go?” he responded throwing his hands up in frustration.

“Never” I whispered, still grinning. The Dragon just sighed and went back to the potion.

“I can already summon fire” I attempted to avoid the lesson one more time.

“Not this fire, I assure you. Fire-heart is one of a kind, because of the magical nature of the flames and all of the ingredients that-“ he continued talking, but I stopped understanding or listening to what he was saying and just watched him geek out about his potions. His dark eyes lit up and his usual grumpiness was replaced by genuine excitement. A strand of hair even stuck up from his usual neat and slick hairstyle. I had the sudden urge to ruffle his hair, knowing how much it annoyed him when his hair didn’t stay put. Or maybe I just wanted to ruffle his hair because I wanted to see how it feels between my fingers. No, I thought. It’s definitely just because I wanted to annoy him.

The hard lines of his face softened when he talked about the things he had a real intrest in, like potions. And probably The Nightmare before Christmas, I thought, remembering the journal page I saw on my first day at the penthouse, before I hit him in the head with Luthe’s Summoning. 

“Were you even listening?” he asked, interrupting the chain of thoughts in my head.

“Uh…” he probably already knew the answer.

“Okay, this is not going to work.” The Dragon sighed.

“I did tell you that before we began. Potions are just not my thing.” Perhaps a few weeks ago he would have insisted, but now he just nodded. He was beginning to trust my methods. Sometimes.

THE DRAGON

She walked out of the lab, the sun already setting. I didn’t really understand why somebody would not like potions- they were reliable, even easy if you respected a good recipe. You had exact measurements of ingredients and-

Enough, I told myself. I had already said something along those lines earlier, when I tried to convince Agieszka that potions are approachable and worth a shot. I quickly finished the one we had been working on and then headed into the living room.

The night had settled, the lights weren’t on, but the television was. Agnieszka was sitting on the couch, waiting for whatever she was watching to start. A familiar theme starting playing.

“The Nightmare before Christmas? Aren’t there more than 3 months left until December?” I asked.

“Are you complaining?”

How on earth did she guess the one movie I never refused watching? I should just head back to my room. The last thing I was going to do was watch a movie with her. She and her stubbornness would be gone in a few months, as soon as the wizarding rules allowed it, and I would be unbothered and by myself again, just as I liked it.

Then why the hell did I sit down on the couch? 

At least I was at the other end of it, not next to her. The movie started and I tried to stay focused on it, but it wasn’t all that easy when Agnieszka was constantly throwing bits of popcorn in my direction.

I ignored the first four, but I caught the fifth in my hand.

“You like burnt popcorn?” I teased her, because it clearly had a dark colouring in some bits.

“Shut up, that stove hates me.” She replied.

Agnieszka was, indeed, an exceptionally bad cook. I actually giggled, before I could stop myself. GIGGLED. Again, I wondered what the hell had been happening since I took her in and why didn’t I stop it. She threw more popcorn at me, probably for laughing at her relationship with the stove.

I made the bowl fly from her hands into mine, so she had no more ammunition. I grabbed a fist of popcorn and shoved it into my mouth. It was not good, but I had to stop myself from saying other stupid shit, or GIGGLING.

“Hey!” she protested, then came over to my end of the couch to reach the bowl.

Crap. She was too close, way too-

She sat down next to me, but instead of shoving away, I moved slightly nearer, until our arms were touching. She noticed, but pretended she didn’t. I did the same and we just sat there and watched The Nightmare before Christmas in the beginning of September.

*********************************************************************************

AGNIESZKA

I was watching the bright morning sky as I drank my tea, trying to decide what type of magic I was going to tackle that day, when I realised I hadn’t done any transfiguration yet. It was a harder area of magic to master, so that’s why I didn’t approach it earlier, but I had to begin somewhere, right? 

I decided to mix it with nature magic, because that was my best skill, so it had to be easier. I took a small pot with a white rose in my hands and visualised a pristine bird emerging from it. AURORA’s song “Winter Bird” immediately came to mind, so I started humming it softly, feeling my magic starting to take shape. The flower wasn’t fully in bloom, but my magic made it grow open. 

As I reached the chorus, the spotless petals uncurled and twisted themselves and morphing under my voice. I raised my voice and a minuscule dove emerged, all the petals turned into feathers. The rose in the pot only had its stem and leaves left.

The little dove took off, I pitched my voice higher and higher. I wanted to end the spell, but I could only continue singing, feeling waves of magic coming out of my voice and entering the bird, more and more and more and more. I had to stop it. I did it. It was enough. But the song kept going and I couldn’t hold my magic in. I started gasping between lyrics and the dove shuddered in its flight. 

Its wings twisted and as the final verse was sung, the last bit of magic clashed into the dove and it collapsed right onto the marbled tiles of the living room. I sank to my knees and held it in my hands, a tear streaking my cheek. It was dead.

I wasn’t mourning something I had just created, but the spell had sucked out all of the energy out of my body, until shedding a tear was the most I could do besides sitting on the floor with a dead bird in my hands.

THE DRAGON

I stopped myself from gasping when I entered the living room. Agnieszka was on the ground, her long hair draping over something white in her hands, which wasn’t a problem in itself- I had grown used to most of her odd habits. No- in that moment, she looked broken. I tried to put away the panic before it began, but I could already feel a terrible nervousness rising inside of me. Even though I didn’t care about her. No, not at all.

“What happened?” the question was fuller of concern and fear than I intended it, but she didn’t even seem to hear me. I crouched down next to her and looked at her palms. She was holding a white dove. And it seemed to be dead. Despite that, the corpse seemed to be radiating a weirdly powerful energy. After that, it only took me a few seconds to figure it out.

“Agnieszka, listen to me,” I started, taking her face in my hands and tried making her look at me. “You put too much magic into the spell, until it absorbed every bit of your power. It’s not unlike in the beginning, when spells drain you until you get used to it. I’m going to try to free the magic out of this, but you have to be ready to take it all back.” I looked down at the dove and spoke the words of a spell for unknotting. 

The words rolled of my tongue crisp and clear. Slowly, but surely, I felt the magic giving away, like a dam letting out more and more water. It flowed out of the dove and into Agnieszka’s chest. After a minute, she gasped and opened her eyes. I kept the spell going and finally, she rose from the ground, her eyes shining.

“I… I don’t know how that happened, but… thank you.”

“Just make sure you don’t lose yourself in a spell. This time, it was an easy situation, but grander charms and more pressure could even kill you if you don’t remain anchored to the reality. Don’t let your life drain away with the magic.”

“Well, thanks for the warning.” The colour was coming back into her cheeks and she was starting to look even more energised than usual, which was normal, considering that she had just received a full charge of her magic all at once. She looked down at the dove in her hands.

“Can we bring it back?” she looked into my eyes, pleading.

“It’s dead, Agnieszka. Why do you care?”

“I made it and killed it myself. I want to see if it can be undone, but I know I can’t do it by myself.”

“Again, what is the purpose-“

“Please. Will you cast a revival spell with me? I’m good at nature magic, you’re good at healing magic. It could work.”

“Fine”, I sighed and took her hands in mine.

AGNIESZKA

 

His hands were cold and his eyes unreadable, but he agreed. I could feel the magic roaring in my veins and I just felt the need to spell more and more and more and more. I suspected this urge was caused by what had happened earlier, but I didn’t think too much about it. After all, if I was in a greater shape for magic than usual, I should test myself and see what I can do at my full potential, right?

“Remember: don’t lose yourself and let your magic out gradually, as the spell progresses.” The Dragon said, looking right into my eyes. I held his gaze as I nodded, than closed my eyes and thought about the right chant for the situation. 

He spoke the incantation loud and clear, concentrating on the healing part of the spell. When it felt right, I started humming my own words, a song I had nearly forgotten but that felt just right for this. It spoke about the Phoenix bird, being born and reborn all over again.

I could feel our magic twisting around us, the air full of energy. The spell circled us until it reached the still warm bird in our hands. We kept going, but I didn’t let all my energy out at once.

My wavy, flowing heaps of magic poured over his crisp, clear structure of energy, complementing each other perfectly. Our voices were syncing and, after a while, I felt the tiny heart in my palms start beating in rhythm with our spell. The dove woke up and I let out a relieved laugh. I looked at the Dragon and I saw him smile, before he tried to hide it and went back to his usual emotionless face. It only seemed emotionless, I thought, because in the weeks I’ve been here, I learnt to read him better. And he could be excited and happy, angry or heartbroken just like everyone else- he just learnt how to hide it for a long time. But I was starting to figure him out.

The dove lifted its wings and took off into the air, flying around us, but we didn’t end the spell. It wasn’t like the last time, where I couldn’t. No, this time, we just didn’t want to, because our magic was flowing and curling around the other’s, filling the room with our energy and making me look him in the eyes. He didn’t look away.

Our magic morphed into the illusion of another dove, and then another. Now three white birds were flying in smaller and smaller circles, forcing us to get closer to each other. The feeling of our energy knotted together was intoxicating. I couldn’t stop smiling.

“We brought it back,” I whispered, raising on my toes to be closer to him.

“We did,” he actually smiled this time and looked at me from a few inches away.

We both closed in the bit of distance left between us and his lips were on mine and I couldn’t breathe. My heart was going to explode, my mind had stopped thinking and I could only feel his arms around me and my hands on his shoulders and my lips on his. I kissed him for a long time, our magic roaring around us and three white doves flying over our heads.

“Still an insufferable nerd” I said when we broke off, still smiling like two idiots.

“Still a stubborn lunatic” he grinned.


End file.
